Le Mage du Kremlin (2025)

A lot of talking, talking, talking. But it can hardly be truly engaging. The film is too long anyway, and the characters fail to really captivate. Putin is cardboard; Jude Law plays him lukewarmly. It is really typically American; everything is laid on thick, and how the Russians think and act is explained by Vadim in a lot of words. Why do those Americans always talk so much? Show, don't tell, guys; they can't do that. And it is also annoying that all the Russians speak English. I understand that Russians might not make a film like this themselves, but this makes little sense either.

Translated from Dutch · View original

A book adaptation at its very best. Not only is there the narrator's voice of Paul Dano, who reads entire passages from Giuliano da Empoli's novel—and for some reason does so with a sort of ASMR voice—but all the dialogue consists of those typical book dialogues; people do not speak to each other in full political-philosophical sentences. And there, incidentally, is that eventually quite irritating ASMR voice of Paul Dano again. Everything is also spoken aloud; there is absolutely no room in the film for the viewer to form their own perspective on the story.

Furthermore, I didn't really feel that the film gave me a unique, or at least interestingly divergent, perspective on the rise of Vladimir Putin. It rushes through known history in quite large strides. Still, a reasonably good Putin by Jude Law. It is also technically well made, although it is essentially a succession of many scenes of people talking to each other in an office or a chic bar.

I also didn't find the title entirely justified based on the characterization of Vladimir Vladimirovich in this film. The Putin in this film knows exactly what he wants. Dano's character, Vadim Baranov, is more an executor of his will than the wizard behind the scenes suggested by the title.

(As seen on Prime Video)

Translated from Dutch · View original